Big Customers Research Articles

Study on the Influence of Government Key Customers on the Enterprise “from Real to Virtual”

Taking China’s Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2007 to 2020 as samples, this paper studies the influence of government background key customers on the financialization of real enterprises. The research finds that the government background big customers reduce the degree of financialization of real enterprises; The heterogeneity test found that, compared with state-owned enterprises, the inhibition effect of big customers with government background on the financialization of real enterprises was more significant in non-state-owned enterprises and industries with fierce competition; The mechanism test found that the government background large customers suppressed the financialization of real enterprises by easing the financing constraints and improving the net profit level. Research shows that the government, as a major customer of enterprises, is an important means to give play to the visible hand of the government, which can effectively reduce the level of financialization of real enterprises and promote high-quality economic development, and can be an important starting point for the country to prevent systemic financial risks.

How do big customers influence bank loans in China? The role of state ownership and political connections

AbstractFirms with big customers are associated with not only high operational efficiency but also high operational risks. We study the effect of big customers on various aspects of bank loan contracts using a manually collected contract‐level dataset from China over the period of 2001–2016. We find that, big customers help firms obtain lower borrowing interest rates, longer loan duration, and larger loan amounts, though this is accompanied by more restrictive borrowing conditions. We further find that state ownership and political connections are important considerations when banks make loan decisions to firms with big customers. Overall, our results show how benefits and costs of big customers are evaluated by banks and priced into bank loan contract terms.

Increasing the efficiency of delivery operations and customer profitability analysis with a time-driven activity-based costing model

Learning outcomes Upon completion of the case study discussion, successful students will be able to define and list the steps of time-driven activity-based costing system (TDABC); understand and explain the ideas behind the TDABC; implement the TDABC in customer profitability analysis; draw connections among the cost and profitability analysis; evaluate the importance of better costing techniques in profitability analysis; and make managerial decisions based on TDABC analysis. Case overview/synopsis Gluten Limited’s financial affairs and operations manager, Fatih, was aware that the company was making very little profit from its operations with its biggest customer. The main reason appeared to be that it delivered its products in bulk to the main warehouses of the customer, which then distributed them to the stores. Fatih believed that products were being sent to stores late, so that their expiration dates passed quickly and they ended up being returned. The case study documents the past year of Gluten Limited’s delivery operations with one of its biggest customers. It focuses on the effectiveness of its delivery operations and ways to increase profitability by reducing sales returns. The case dilemma involves the choices that Fatih faced following a six-month trial period: either delivering products in bulk to the customer’s main warehouses at lower cost but higher return rates or delivering small amounts directly to stores at higher cost but lower return rates. Fatih needed to decide which mode of customer operations was more profitable and continue that way. Knowing the importance of determining costs properly in profitability analysis, Fatih made the cost calculations using the TDABC system. Complexity academic level This case was written for use in Cost Accounting and Managerial Accounting classes at the undergraduate level. The focus of the case aligns well with discussions of customer profitability analysis, cost reductions, eliminating non-value-added activities, and profitability of operations. Instructors seeking to emphasize the most suitable costing methods for customer profitability analysis could assign this case. Supplementary material Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 7: Management Science

The Influence of Government Background Key Customers on Enterprise Information Quality

Based on the customer information data of listed companies in China from 2011 to 2020, this paper explores the influence of government background key customers on enterprise information quality from the perspective of supply chain. The results show that the big customers with government background help to improve the information quality of enterprises. Compared with the enterprises with poor audit opinions, the information quality of enterprises with good audit opinions is better promoted than those in the government background, they can improve the information quality of enterprises with large industry competition. And put forward relevant suggestions.

THE BENEFITS OF HAVING A BEST-IN-CLASS SHIPBUILDING TOOL

With the acquisition of FORAN by Siemens, it is expected to enhance the marine design and engineering capabilities soon. This is the perfect marriage, FORAN, the shipbuilding CAD tool with the longest tradition, and Siemens, always at the state of the art of the technology. This integration will provide a comprehensive portfolio of software and services related to all facets of a ship’s lifecycle, including concept design, production and operations, as well as optimized service lifecycle management. We have become a key partner for the shipbuilding Industry, and although we are a global leader, we need to retain our customers and gain new ones, and in order to do that, we need to work harder providing them the best solutions. By creating a best-in-class tool for shipbuilding, leveraging the team’s industry expertise, shipyards and technical offices will be able to have a better control of their ship design and manufacturing process as they transition to Shipyard 4.0. There is a lot of work out-there, waiting for us to achieve a greater success, big customers with big needs, and Siemens will provide the best solution as possible.

Creating ethics guidelines for artificial intelligence and big data analytics customers: The case of the consumer European insurance market

SummaryThe European Union (EU) has a strong reputation and track record for the development of guidelines for the ethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) generally. In this paper, we discuss the development of an AI and ethical framework by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), for the European insurance market. EIOPA's earlier report on big data analytics (EIOPA, 2019) provided a foundation to analyze the complex range of issues associated with AI being deployed in insurance, such as behavioral insurance, parametric products, novel pricing and risk assessment algorithms, e-service, and claims management. The paper presents an overview of AI in insurance applications throughout the insurance value chain. A general discussion of ethics, AI, and insurance is provided, and a new hierarchical model is presented that describes insurance as a complex system that can be analyzed by taking a layered, multi-level approach that maps ethical issues directly to specific level(s).

Creating Ethics Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data Analytics Customers: The Case of the Consumer European Insurance Market

The European Union (EU) has a strong reputation and track record for being proactive in the development of guidelines and regulations for the ethical use of AI generally. In this paper, we discuss the development of an AI and ethical framework by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), for the European insurance market. EIOPA’s earlier report on big data analytics (EIOPA 2019) provided an important foundation to analyse and evaluate the complex range of issues and ethical problems associated with the wave of new AI technologies being deployed in insurance such as behavioural insurance, parametric products, novel pricing and risk assessment algorithms, e-service and claims management, which exploit big data and machine learning. In this paper we present an overview of the use of AI in insurance based on the full range of insurance applications throughout the insurance value chain. A general discussion of ethics and AI is illustrated with the specific use-case of insurance, and a new hierarchical model is presented that describes insurance as a complex system that can be analysed by taking a layered, multi-level approach, on which ethical issues can be mapped directly to specific level(s).

Liner Shipping Schedule Design for Near-Sea Routes Considering Big Customers’ Preferences on Ship Arrival Time

There usually exist a few big customers at ports of near-sea container shipping routes who have preferences on the weekly ship arrival times due to their own production and sale schedules. Therefore, in practice, when designing ship schedules, carriers must consider such customers’ time preferences, regarded as weekly soft-time windows, to improve customer retention, thereby achieving sustainable development during a depression in the shipping industry. In this regard, this study explores how to balance the tradeoff between the ship total operating costs and penalty costs from the violation of the weekly soft-time windows. A mixed-integer nonlinear nonconvex model is proposed and is further transformed into a mixed-integer linear optimization model that can be efficiently solved by extant solvers to provide a global optimal solution. The proposed model is applied to a near-sea service route from China to Southeast Asia. The results demonstrate that the time preferences of big customers affect the total cost, optimal sailing speeds, and optimal ship arrival times. Moreover, the voyage along a near-sea route is generally short, leaving carriers little room for adjusting the fleet size.

Pengembangan kWh Meter Elektronik untuk Pengecekan CT Konsumen Secara On Site

Current Transfomer(CT) accuracy for big customers is very important. Constraints Execution of CT accuracy testing on big customers is quite a lot of customers and scattered, and longtime outage duration. Development of electronic kwh Meter for checking on-site CT customers as a solution to these problems. The onsite CT measurement method is carried out by comparing the primary and secondary of the CT by utilizing the current coil on the electronic kWh Meter. This method has several advantages, lower costs, easy procurement, easy and fast operation, so the duration of outages can be minimized. This method is very supportive in the implementation of the Revenue Assurance program.

Testing a System Where Machines Decide How Much to Pay a Trucker, and Send a Check

About 16 people can end up touching the paperwork required to move a truckload of water from a well in the Bakken to a salt-water disposal site. Rebecca Hofmann hopes to slash that total to zero as chairman of the Oil and Gas Blockchain Consortium. The 10-member industry group, including her employer Equinor, will be pilot testing a system built to automate tracking, cost accounting, and payments for oilfield shipments. “I totally think this will be successful,” she said. Her enthusiasm for Blockchain-based tracking was born at a seminar about using Blockchain in business. That feeling was shared by several others and that led her to start holding regular meetings on the subject. Those gatherings grew so large it eventually led to the consortium. While confident about the digital technology, Hofmann recognizes that the hard part is gathering the critical mass of support needed to make this a commercial reality. Members of the group carry a lot of weight in the industry. They include supermajors—Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell—as well as several other large companies, including ConocoPhillips, Hess, Marathon, Noble Energy, Pioneer Natural Resources, and Repsol Natural Resources. When the Equinor-led pilot project begins, it will need to make a case for change. “There are nine other operators watching our every move,” she said. The contract to provide a version of Blockchain equipped with the hardware and software needed to bring it all together went to Data Gumbo, which earns a small fraction of the value of transactions tracked. After years of looking for a problem the oil industry would pay it to solve, Data Gumbo recently announced three contracts related to logistics management. “Water haulage is a prelude to Blockchain for all bulk commodity haulage, including sand, oil, natural gas, and crude,” said Andrew Bruce, chief executive officer of Data Gumbo. This pilot test will expose Data Gumbo to a group of big potential customers. The consortium is working on a pilot that could help turn budget cost estimates to actual well development cost data, and another that would manage seismic data. For each, Data Gumbo plans to work with companies offering different versions of Blockchain to evaluate strengths and weaknesses. Blockchain’s ability to record a series of events in a form that can be seen by all involved and changed by no one makes it a logical tool for creating a complete record of a shipment, from the contract through delivery. It is integrated with tools used to reach out for the information needed to measure amounts and make payments. “It is never just Blockchain anyway,” Hoffman said, because other tools must be integrated with it track information and act on it. The technology used is generally not new or expensive. What is difficult is building the support required to break entrenched habits, and sell a new “standard way of working,” Hofmann said. Blockchain provides a shared view of the project, but improvements require the parties to identify bottle-necks in the details and work together to resolve•them. The system, installed by Equinor on five Bakken well pads, measures the volume of water in the tank—that can be used to alert truckers to come for a pickup—and a flowmeter to measure how much fluid is loaded into the truck.

Detection of Non-Technical Losses Using Smart Meter Data and Supervised Learning

Non-technical electricity losses due to anomalies or frauds are accountable for important revenue losses in power utilities. Recent advances have been made in this area, fostered by the roll-out of smart meters. In this paper, we propose a methodology for non-technical loss detection using supervised learning. The methodology has been developed and tested on real smart meter data of all the industrial and commercial customers of Endesa. This methodology uses all the information the smart meters record (energy consumption, alarms and electrical magnitudes) to obtain an in-depth analysis of the customer’s consumption behavior. It also uses auxiliary databases to provide additional information regarding the geographical location and technological characteristics of each smart meter. The model has been trained, validated and tested on the results of approximately 57 000 on-field inspections. It is currently in use in a non-technical loss detection campaign for big customers. Several state-of-the-art classifiers have been tested. The results show that extreme gradient boosted trees outperform the rest of the classifiers.

Outsourcing and supplier development: capability development process in the Brazilian sports apparel industry

Abstract Outsourcing allows quick reactions to market fluctuations and allows firms to focus on their core business. This strategy is currently used in the Brazilian apparel industry. The paper analyzes the interaction between big customers (some multinationals firms) and Brazilian suppliers in the sports apparel industry to verify how these relationships can contribute to the capability development of suppliers. Multiple case studies were conducted. The findings indicated that collaborative, and long-term relationships are beneficial to businesses and customers significantly influence the development of the sewing factory suppliers with whom they work.

Ensuring food security: an analysis of the industrial smoking fishery sector of Ghana

BackgroundThe smoked fishery sector of Ghana plays an important role in terms of food security, employment creation, income generation and foreign exchange earnings aiding sustainable development of the Ghanaian economy. Fish smoking is the leading technique of fish processing in Ghana (70–80% of local fish consumption is smoked). As fish consumers are becoming more aware of fish safety issues, it is vital to analyse developments in the smoked fishery sector of Ghana in order to ensure food safety, nutritional needs, fish food security and employment. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the industrial fish smoking sector, especially, exports to the European market (Ghana’s biggest customer in terms of earnings). Also, an analysis of the various characteristics and interests of fish smoking will be conducted. Managing the fishery resources through value addition and trade will help Ghana to achieve sustainable development targets.ResultsSmoked fish provides food, nutrients and livelihoods to a number of Ghanaians, especially the poor. Aside from traditional fish smoking production, about 67 t of industrial smoked fish [in live weight (Euro stat Conversion Factor for smoked fish (into live weight) is 3.31)] is produced annually by smoking establishments, most of it going to Europe. The market for Ghanaian industrial smoked fish products is the African diaspora living in European countries and is worth 64 t (in live weight) valued at 80,000 EUR in 2016. The major species smoked are from inland sources (mainly Chrysichthys sp., Tilapia sp., Lates sp., Synodontis sp., Hydrocynus sp., Cyprinus carpio and Clarias sp.) and marine sources (Sphyraena sp., Caranx sp., Sardinella, herrings and Penaeus sp.). Industrial smoking establishments are supplied by approved fishing establishments selected only based on EU food safety standards, by Ghanaian Competent Authority (CA). The approved smoking establishments are supplied by just a few fishing vessels supplying marine species, and mainly rely on small-scale fisheries for their raw material. Both the plant and the Competent Authority regularly monitor all stages of the production chain, the landing sites, plant structure and processing process.ConclusionsIndustrial smoked fish products have high value added. It is important to support this processing industry. Generally, the smoking industry in Ghana is characterised by up to 50% capacity utilisation. Fish waste is generally sold to livestock and aquaculture feed farms. Quality requirements of smoked products not only involve polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) levels but also Listeria, histamine (for some species) and Clostridium. Further attention and support should be given to the small and medium enterprises and processing associations trying to reach the EU PAHs threshold (2 ppm/kg) by improved methods, making traditional smoking safer and directly benefiting the Ghanaian population. Moreover, the capacity of the Ministries of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, Trade and Industry, Health, Food Research Institute, Ghana Export and Promotion Authority, Ghana Standards Authority and the Food and Drugs Authority should be built to effectively monitor processing establishments in order to produce safe smoked products for European diasporas and Ghanaians.

An application of data mining techniques in designing catalogue for a laundry service

Catalogues are the media that companies use to promote their products or services. Since catalogue is one of marketing media, the first essential step before designing product catalogue is determining the market target. Besides, it is also important to put some information that appeal to the target market, such as discount or promos by analysing customer pattern preferences in using services or buying product. This study conduct two data mining technique. The first is clustering analysis to segment customer and the second one is association rule mining to discover an interesting pattern about the services that commonly used by the customer at the same service time. Thus, the results will be used as a recommendation to make an attractive marketing strategy to be put in the service catalogue promo for a laundry in Sleman Yogyakarta. The clustering result showed that the biggest customer segment is university student who come 3 until 5 times in a month on weekends, while the association rule result showed that clothes, shoes, and bed sheet have strong relationship. The catalogue design is presented in the end of the paper.

An Exploratory Treatise on Jay-customers Behavior in the Banking Industry in India: A Dyadic Perspective

The purpose of this research is to examine reasons and evaluate strategies implemented by the Indian banking industry in tackling jaycustomers in general and in light of the recent demonetization in particular. After a thorough germane literature and theoretical framework on jay-customers and Indian banking industry, researchers framed a well-structured questionnaire for collecting banking employees opinions along with a set of questions framed to conduct in-depth personal interviews with banking customers. The collected data were summarized, coded, and controlled by using Software R and the selected hypotheses were analyzed by the observance of percentile values. More than 90 percent of banking employees said lack of proper supply of cash from the Reserve Bank of India is the major reason for this kind of customer behaviour and shockingly 95 percent of banking customers expressed backdoor preference given by banking employees to some big customers is the major reason. The research confined only two state capitals Amaravati and Bangalore in India and covered only two largest banks one in public and private sector. The research provides useful insight into the crucial reasons for jay-customers’ behaviour from the dyadic perspective of both employees and customers of the Indian banking industry.

Analysis of voltage quality parameters in MV distribution grid

This study describes the impact of operation of big customers on voltage quality (VQ) parameters in medium-voltage (MV) distribution grids. The survey is based on the evaluation of 45 VQ measurements which were carried out in 15 different delivery points of other customers. These 45 measurements were made in years 2014, 2015 and 2016 (15 measurements a year) and were evaluated according to the standard EN 50160. The impact on voltage variations and other VQ parameters was analysed.

Do big customers influence listed firms’ performance? Based on supplier–customer relationships in China

Using hand-collected data of the top five customers disclosed by Chinese listed firms in their annual reports, this paper examines the impact of supplier–customer relationships on firms’ operating performance using the framework of DuPont analysis. The empirical results show a significantly negative correlation between customer concentration and firm performance based on return on assets. The negative impact on performance results from the decrease of the gross profit margin and accounts receivable turnover. Meanwhile, suppliers have to pay more entertainment expenses to retain their main customers and bear more financial expenses because of defaults in payment of customers. These results rely on the closeness of supplier–customer relationships and their relative bargaining power. Customer concentration increases the turnover of accounting receivables and inventories in those industries with overcapacity. The overall results provide evidence of the impact of big customers on the supplier’s performance.

Assessment of Energy Conservation in Egypt's Electric System

This paper provides an evaluation of energy saving policy as a key factor in Egypt' s electric system in terms of benefits, invested cost, power quality and environmental impact, solutions have been made by system planners and decision makers aiming to face the challenges that being encountered by the electric system such as scarce and precious of prime energies are compared in terms of invested cost, implementation time and advantages for both of power providers and end users w.r.to energy savings. A case study that implemented in a pilot program for energy savings was given. It is a group of facilities include industrial, commercial, administrative companies and worship houses, they are connected to Alexandria electrical distribution network, they are classified as big customers, i.e. contracted power for each is higher than 0.5 mega watt, the goals of the program were evaluating potentials of energy saving opportunities in the system and estimating the outcomes. O ptions were evaluated with regard to savings in electricity, fuels and water. Cost of investments and pay back periods were calculated. Environmental impact as a result of saving in emitted green house gas co 2 is determined. Potentials of energy savings are analyzed and benefits to both electric utilities and end users were assessed.

Value co-creation between firms and customers: The role of big data-based cooperative assets

To better understand how big data interconnects firms and customers in promoting value co-creation, we propose a theoretical framework of big data-based cooperative assets based on evidence of multiple case studies. We identify four types of big data resources and four types of associated digital platforms, and we explore how firms develop the cooperative assets by transforming big data resources via the theoretical lens of service-dominant logic. This study offers a new theoretical perspective on value co-creation and an alternative competitive strategy in the era of big data for firms.

Spanish firm replaces mercury-cell process

To comply with European legislation, the Spanish basic chemicals producer Ercros will close its mercury-cell chlor-alkali plants, which have a combined annual capacity of 213,000 metric tons, by the end of 2017. It will replace the capacity with a 45,000-metric-ton plant based on membrane technology. The firm says the membrane-based plant will cost $60 million and open in 2018. Ercros says it does not plan to replace all of the mercury capacity because its biggest customer, Covestro, plans to close its Spanish isocyanate plant, which consumes chlor-alkali.